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Before passage of the Affordable Care Act, becoming an adult meant getting kicked to the curb
when it came to health coverage.

“Our gift used to be when people turned 19 was to take away their health insurance,” said Karen
Pollitz, a senior fellow at the Kaiser Family Foundation. “Turn 19 and we kick them out.”

If you were in college, you could usually stay on your parents’ insurance until you turned 22.
But until health-care reform came about, young adults who didn’t find jobs with health coverage or
qualify for government insurance were often left uninsured and vulnerable to massive medical
bills.

Now, there’s a present awaiting young adults.

Thanks to the health law, commonly referred to as Obamacare, you may now be able to get
insurance or continue to be covered under a parent’s plan up to the age of 26. This coverage is
available even if you’re married, not living at home, attending school or are financially
independent. Starting next year, young adults up to 26 can stay on their parents’ employer plan
even if they have another offer of coverage through an employer.

The downside for some parents is that they might have to pay extra to keep young-adult children
covered. But at least they will have insurance.

And, in just a few weeks, a new marketplace will open giving young adults, particularly those
older than 26, another option for obtaining health insurance. This is one shopping trip, at
www.healthcare.gov, that you need to go on.

There is concern that not enough young, healthy adults will purchase insurance to help offset
the cost of those who are older and sicker and need a lot of health-care services. But some experts
think these concerns are overstated.

They note that insurance plans in the new marketplace will cover a core set of benefits such as
hospitalization, maternity and newborn care, mental-health and substance-use disorder services, and
prescription drugs.

With the help of trained personnel called “navigators,” insurance shoppers will be able to
compare plans based on a number of factors, including price and benefits. They also will be able to
determine if they qualify for subsidies to help pay for the coverage.

When you’re young and healthy, you might think you can put off getting health insurance. Maybe
money is tight and you figure this is something you can delay until you get older, like
contributing to a retirement plan.

“Health insurance is something at the moment I feel I can’t afford,” said Josh Nece, 29, an
uninsured restaurant server in Oakland, Calif.

Nece, who has severe eczema, says that with rent, transportation, student-loan payments and
other expenses, he couldn’t afford the cost of getting insurance on his own. But he needs insurance
to help pay for the medication and doctor visits when his eczema breaks out. He says he often goes
without treatment or medication because he can’t afford it.

He plans to check out the marketplace in his state.

“I’m pretty sure I’m going to get health insurance,” he said. “Going into my 30s, I know it’s
one of the adult things I need to do.”

In June, Kaiser asked young adults whether they wanted and valued health insurance. The answer
was a resounding yes, contrary to the conventional wisdom about young adults feeling they are
invincible.

Although most young adults already have coverage, more than 19 million lack basic health
insurance. In 2011,

27.9 percent of Americans ages 19 to 25 were uninsured. About the same percentage in the
26-to-34 age bracket also didn’t have insurance, according to Kaiser.

Some young adults might not get health insurance because the penalty for not purchasing it isn’t
stiff enough. If the government determines that you are in the financial position to pay for
coverage and you don’t fall under an exemption, you’ll have to pay a penalty for being uninsured
when you file your federal income tax. The penalty starts at $95 annually next year for an
individual and can go up to $285 for a family, or

1 percent of a family’s household income, depending on which is higher.

I like to believe millennials are smart enough to recognize they can’t afford not to get health
insurance. It’s a gift that can keep them not only healthy but out of medical debt.